LONDON: Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Palestinians Britain will step up efforts to discourage the growth of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying he wanted trade abuses investigated and investment inhibited.

Brown made the commitment to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in a Dec 9 letter released on the sidelines of an investment conference in London on Monday.

“The UK is now looking at what effective action we can take to discourage settlement expansion,” Brown wrote.

The EU gives preferential treatment to Israeli products, but Palestinians complain that many of those goods, labelled as made in Israel, actually come from Jewish settlements deep in the W. Bank.

Western diplomats in Jerusalem said the EU was exploring ways to ensure that products made in Jewish settlements do not receive the trade benefits, though a concerted policy has yet to take shape. In the letter, Brown told Fayyad that Britain wanted any potential trade abuses “fully investigated”.

He also expressed concern that Palestinian producers were not receiving the tariff-free treatment they are entitled to under a separate EU-Palestinian accord.

Diplomats said an EU crackdown could have a substantial financial impact on Jewish settlements — as well as on the Palestinians working there.

“Consumers must be empowered to make informed choices about what they are buying. Geographic labelling works well in most cases,” Brown wrote.

But he noted that a label saying made in the W. Bank may prevent consumers from distinguishing between Palestinian produce and produce from Israeli settlements.

“So we are working with EU colleagues to find a way to give retailers and manufacturers clearer guidance on labelling best practice,” the prime minister wrote.

Britain was also looking at whether there were “effective ways in which we can discourage” British nationals from buying property inside West Bank settlements.

Brown said he asked officials to update British travel advice to include a specific warning that “potential purchasers of property in a settlement should consider that a future peace agreement could have consequences for that property”.

—Reuters